Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Forestry

Undemocratic Politics Again Determines Land Use in Tasmania: An Update

By

A DECISION made in Cambodia this month by the United Nation’s World Heritage committee could add 172,000 hectares of forest to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Federal Minister for the Environment Tony Burke was seeking to have the deal sealed without proper scrutiny, in particular by using a loophole in the UN guidelines to label it as a “minor” modification. But this plan to rush through the extension in support of the Tasmanian forest peace deal hit a major hurdle when a key UN adviser, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) recently rejected the proposal as ‘minor’ and recommended that the nomination be ‘referred back’ to Australia to enable full and proper consultation.

The draft decision is at: http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2013/whc13-37com-8B-Add-en.pdf

But what the final outcome will be is unclear. It is understood that the Australian government and the environmental NGO’s will be sending delegations to lobby individual committee members to overturn the recommendation to ‘refer back’ the nomination.

Tasmanian Wilderness 172000 ha addition

[Read more…] about Undemocratic Politics Again Determines Land Use in Tasmania: An Update

Undemocratic Politics Again Determines Land Use in Tasmania: Alan Ashbarry

By

A decision made in Cambodia in June by the United Nation’s World Heritage committee could add 172,000 hectares of forest to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Gillard government is seeking to have the deal sealed without proper scrutiny, in particular by using a loophole in the UN guidelines to label it as a “minor” modification so it can be approved before a likely change of government in September.

The proposal for a “minor” boundary modification was developed by the Federal minister for the Environment, Tony Burke, as part of the outcomes of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement signed between three main environmental lobby groups and industry representatives on 22 November 2012. The industry signed up with the hope the proposal would end years of campaigning against the Tasmanian forest industry.

Photography by Jennifer Marohasy, Tasmania , May 2005
Photography by Jennifer Marohasy, Tasmania , May 2005

The World Heritage area has been controversial since it was first inscribed in 1982 when only 769,355 ha in size, and led to the 1983 Australian High Court ruling that the Commonwealth’s external relations powers gave it the right to prevent the flooding of the Franklin River for a renewable Hydro power scheme, not withstanding Tasmania’s constitutional land use rights.

It was the subject of the Commonwealth’s Helsham inquiry in the late 1980’s that examined the need for a further extension to the wilderness. The majority finding was overturned by the Hawke government, and a proposal adding 604,645 ha, i.e. a 78 per cent increase, was accepted by the World Heritage Committee. The extension was said by the environment Minister Graham Richardson to cement the green preference strategy to re-elect the Hawke ALP government. [Read more…] about Undemocratic Politics Again Determines Land Use in Tasmania: Alan Ashbarry

Save the Carbon, Harvest the Forest?

By

Government policies across the world generally favour locking-up forests for carbon sequestration. But a new study by the NSW Government’s Department of Primary Industries suggests: Total greenhouse gas emissions abatement and carbon storage from a multiple use production forest exceed the carbon storage benefit of a conservation forest.

The report stresses that to quantify the climate change impacts of forestry, the entire forestry system should be considered: the carbon dynamics of the forest, the life cycle of forest products; the substitution benefit of biomass and wood products, the risk of leakage resulting from deforestation and forest degradation in other countries.

The study compares the overall greenhouse gas balance for two coastal harvested versus two conservation forests. The accounting method used shows that most of the savings for the harvested forests is in the area of “product substitution”; the idea being that substitution of wood through the use of cement, steel and aluminium creates emissions.

If you are interested in the crooked business of carbon accounting, or looking to justify the harvesting of forests for more fashionable reasons than economics, the report is worth a read:

Harvested forests provide the greatest ongoing greenhouse gas benefits. By Fabiano Ximenes et al. NSW Government, June 2012.
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/434643/Harvested-forests-provide-the-greatest-ongoing-greenhouse-gas-benefits.pdf

Time to Investigate ‘Green’ Media Spin: Mark Poynter

By

BIASED media coverage of natural resource use issues should be fertile ground for the ABC’s Media Watch, but despite efforts to draw their attention to this have displayed little or no inclination to cover it in the past. Then again, as some of the worst examples of biased coverage of environmental issues have emanated from the ABC, this is perhaps not so surprising.

Most notably, the double-episode of the ABC’s Australian Story – ‘Something in the Water’ in February 2010 – springs to mind. It claimed that eucalypt plantations occupying just 4% of a Tasmanian town’s water catchment were toxic to humans, animals, and marine life. Screened just 3-weeks before the Tasmanian state election, the program sparked a controversy that was not backed by credible science yet resulted in the unseating of the government’s Health Minister and quite likely contributed to the formation of the current Labor-Greens minority government which has a distinctly anti-forestry agenda.

If the ABC is to ever rid itself of the perception that it caters to a primarily Green-Left audience, its supposedly independent investigative journalists need to start examining the excesses of mainstream environmentalism and the damage it is doing both to the wider environment and regional and rural communities. A good start would be for Media Watch to investigate arguably the most prominent form of media spin which is seen on an almost daily basis – that is the coverage of natural resource usage promulgated at the behest of mainstream environmental groups.

Read more here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13417

How Aborigines Made Australia: Bill Gammage

By

A new book, The Biggest Estate on Earth, by historian Bill Gammage explodes the myth that pre-settlement Australia was an untamed wilderness revealing the complex, country-wide systems of land management used by Aboriginal people.

According to the publisher’s website:

“Early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised.

“For over a decade, Gammage has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. We know Aboriginal people spent far less time and effort than Europeans in securing food and shelter, and now we know how they did it.

“With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, The Biggest Estate on Earth rewrites the history of this continent, with huge implications for us today. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires we now experience. And what we think of as virgin bush in a national park is nothing of the kind.”

This book must challenge the myth of virgin “remnant” vegetation that currently underpins significant land management legislation in Queensland and NSW.

Bill Gammage is a historian and adjunct professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University.

Go buy a box of Reflex brand paper

By

WE are so connected to each other via the Internet, but so disconnected from reality when it comes to primary production including paper production.  Indeed most Australians don’t know the first thing about farming or forestry.     So, we are so susceptible to the slick, online, marketing campaigns from the mainstream multi-million dollar environmental lobby.   Their campaigns are increasingly big on style, reinforce popular myths, and promise you redemption. In the case of an on-going campaign from the Wilderness Society this just involves you not buying Reflex brand paper.[1]

But I’m sceptical.

[Read more…] about Go buy a box of Reflex brand paper